Coffee cups contribute to a huge part of landfill waste in the US. Starbucks alone produces and discards over four billion paper cups a year, globally, almost all of which are never recycled due to their plastic lining. The production of paper cups, alongside other non-biodegradable papers, is one of the leading causes of deforestation in the US, and the problem is getting worse every year.
Reduce. Reuse. Grow.‘s creator, Alex Henige is hoping to change that. The California kick-starter was born when then landscape architecture student Henige wanted to dream up a way to reduce waste in commercial companies. And then the world’s first “plantable coffee cup” was created.
The 12-ouce prototype is made out of a compostable post-consumer paper, lined with a plant-based compostable lining and embedded with seeds of wildflowers, local fauna and even tree seeds. So when you’ve had your coffee fix, simply unravel the cup, soak in water for five minutes and plant. The cups even come with instructions and a handy guide to the seeds on the bottom of the cup, telling you what you’re planting and where to plant it.
And for those who don’t like to get their hands dirty, or simply don’t have the time, Reduce. Reuse. Grow. proposes local bins were consumers can drop off their used plantable coffee cups which will be planted in problem areas by a third party team.
Setting themselves apart from the other recyclable or bio-degradable cups on the market, Reduce. Reuse. Grow. claims that their cups are the only 100 per cent degradable cups available, adding that ‘recyclable’ cups only have a limited ‘recycle limit’, making them obsolete.
“Even when we think we are recycling and doing a good deed, the paper itself within these products can only be reused [two to three times] before the fibres are unusable and discarded into local landfills without consumer’s knowing,” their kick-starter reads.
In their promotional video the organisation says that the key to improving our consumerist society “isn’t to consume less but consume better, consume smarter.”
The kick-starter is aiming to raise $10,000 for its project, and hopes to have plantable cups in coffee shops in California by this year.
Coffee with a cause? We’ll drink to that.
